What are beating, reaching and running?
A. ’Beating’ is sailing to windward as close as you can go (without pointing so high to wind that you actually stall). ‘Reaching’ is sailing with the actual wind on the beam (but as your speed increases, the apparent wind will appear to be more from the front). ‘Close reaching’ is turning more to windward, and ‘Broad reaching’ is bearing away so the wind is more ‘aft’. ‘Running’ is sailing with the wind coming from the behind – it’s slower because you can go no faster than the wind… and it’s a very unstable wobbly way of sailing, because you have no resistance to rolling. (Sailing is too complicated to explain at length without diagrams, you may be able to find more extensive tutorials on the web or in a book.
